Victimhood: Our fastest growing industry

Old NFO recently posted about a friend who "Went Galt"

Great leaders are people who throw long shadows.  They inspire the team to work together and work to potential.  Their magic is that their talents not only "scale", the magic is that their talents create a multiplier effect.

A simple example is when Magic Johnson was on the basketball court.  EVERYBODY became a star.

Old NFO's friend told somebody to do their job.  That somebody pushed back by going to Human Resources and filing a "Hostile Workplace" claim.

You just cannot win

I had to read this article in Slate twice to determine if the author was serious.

Slate’s Hanna Rosin (claims)  Hollaback edited out nearly all the white male catcallers.

The producer's response

In a statement explaining the absence of white guys in the video... “We got a fair amount of white guys, but for whatever reason, a lot of what they said was in passing or off camera.”

To which the author of the editorial responds

White men, on the other hand, have no use for that sort of catcalling. They marked their territory centuries ago...their sexual harassment is...harder to recognize.  As a biracial woman I've walked into parties and white guys have gawked at me ever so slightly.

Unfortunately, the standards of "Harassment" and "Hostile Workplace Environment" are subjective.  The two standards are eyes-of-harassed and 12-retired-widows.  The reasons are political and economic.  If the person who claims to be harassed feels sufficiently aggrieved then they will continue to escalate unless mollified.  If the case goes to litigation then the roulette wheel is really spinning.

This is a case of asymmetric warfare. The guerrilla warrior has much less to lose than the company and far more to gain.  Game theory suggests that we are lucky we don't have more of those behaviors.

Reality Check (added 8 hours after initial posting)

I had Belladonna read the piece from Slate.  She is an editor on the local high school paper.  I asked her if she would publish this piece if it were submitted by a high school student.  She replied, "No." without hesitation.  I asked why.  She said, "It is not journalism.  She slams white guys simply on the basis of their race.  Also, she is not reporting anything.  She is speculating about thoughts in other people's heads and then slamming them.  She did not interview anybody."

St Louis, Missouri

The protestors are circling St Louis, Missouri in anticipation of the Ferguson, Missouri police officer not being indited on Manslaughter charges.

They issued a list of demands:

One of the demands is of particular interest.

9) Police or other government authorities will not interfere with the free flow of information through tactics such as limiting cell or internet access, interception of cell or other mobile conversations or unwarranted wiretaps.

If authorities refuse to disrupt rioter's command-and-control system then I would put my microwave oven in the window with its door open, jimmy the door-closed sensor and fry their smart phones with 1200 Watts of 2.4GHz.  Asymmetry can be inverted!